Sunday, August 28, 2011

Shortly after moving to our new home here in Nashville, TN, Alan and I were thrilled to find our new church home. The only problem was that the existing pastor was leaving, and the new one wasn't set to arrive for several months. So, the church elders called on a former retired pastor, who graciously accepted the offer to serve in the interim. He (let's call him Pastor Jim) was a old man with glasses, a kind face, and thick Southern drawl.

The congregation seemed thrilled to have Pastor Jim and welcomed him back with open arms and happy hearts. When he walked up to the podium to deliver his first sermon, he paused, looked over at the high school choir, and smiled as he remarked that he was pretty sure he had baptized just about every one of them when they were infants. Then he began his message.

That was over three months ago. We now have our new leader and the interim pastor has gone happily back into retirement. But I must admit the words he spoke that first day have stuck with me ever since. I can't get them out of my head. I'd really love to get your opinion about them. Here's a gist of what his sermon entailed:

The topic was about two forms of sin. One is the most obvious, when we KNOW what we're about to do is wrong, yet we do it anyway. Like the shoplifter who grabs merchandise off the shelves and puts it in his pocket. He KNOWS stealing is wrong and a sin (Thou shalt not steal), but he does it anyway.

The other form of sin, the pastor explained, was the kind when we commit an act, but we're unaware we are doing wrong. Jim chose this example to prove his point: He said he remembered being a young boy in high school back in the 50's, and how much he and his buddies loved going down to the local drugstore to drink root beer floats and chocolate milkshakes. He said there was a sign over the counter that read "Whites Only." A little further down was the "Colored Section." Pastor Jim pointed out that this was a sin. But "We just didn't know."

Really? You didn't know? You didn't know that it was wrong to treat another human being this way? I tell you, I can't get those words out of my brain. "We just didn't know." Wow.

I'm trying very hard, I promise you, not to be judgmental on this. (That would also be a sin, by the way!). I grew up in the suburbs of Ohio, where all of my classmates were white and middle class. We had one Jewish boy, I remember, and we pretty much accepted him, except at Christmastime when we mercilessly grilled him about his Hannukkah traditions ("Seriously? Santa doesn't visit your house? REALLY? How do you cope?"). I have no idea what it was like to deal with bussing or racial unrest in my community. But I will say that I was raised to treat everyone, EVERYONE, with kindness and respect.

I volunteer with my new best friend, Michelle, at a local charity that provides books for underprivileged children. Michelle is the volunteer coordinator. One day a week we are joined by another volunteer, a 60 year old woman we'll call Roberta. Roberta is a fast, hard worker. Roberta is also a blatant racist. Her views come out loud and clear in the conversations we have while processing books, and I must tell you many of her comments have left both Michelle and I speechless.

At the end of a rather strenuous day recently, the three of us were walking back to our cars when Roberta asked Michelle and I, "Have either of you seen 'The Help?'" She was referring to the movie just released starring Emma Stone, Viola Davis, and Octavia Spencer involving black maids in the early sixties in the town of Jackson, Mississippi. The women basically cooked, cleaned, and raised Southern white children. In turn, they were treated as second class citizens. Emma Stone's character, a young journalist, convinces the black women to tell their side of the story, for an article she is writing for Harper's Bazaar. The stories are an immediate hit and are made into book form, much to the dismay of all of the white women in Jackson.

When Michelle and I informed Roberta that we had not, in fact, seen the movie, she rolled her eyes and said she didn't plan on seeing it at all. When we asked her why not, she waved her hand dismissively and stated, "It's characterized bullshit. That's just how we treated black people back then. We didn't know it was wrong. Nobody did."

There was that phrase again. "We didn't know..." So today, my friend Michelle and I went to see "The Help." It was a terrific movie with Oscar-worthy performances delivered by several of the actresses. But I must tell you, my friends, I'm still so appalled that we treated each other this way. This wasn't one hundred years ago, this was less than fifty. And Roberta is proof that this way of thinking still exists.

Michelle and I stood outside the theater after the movie ended, still contemplating it's message. Michelle's story is different from mine, in that she was raised in the Deep South, in New Orleans, LA. She told me she distinctly remembers her mother escorting her to her first day of elementary school when desegregation was initially enforced. The teacher approached her mother and cried in a hushed tone, "Good Lord, I've got four of THEM in my classroom!"

Michelle's mother was also strongly opposed to her serving as a bridesmaid in her black friend's wedding. There were ten bridesmaids, Michelle was the only white one. When she asked her mother why she disapproved, her only reply was, "It's just not done, that's all."

Michelle, being the smart, awesome, headstrong lady that she is, told me that she was raised with all the prejudice and bigotry as everyone else at the time. But she KNEW it was wrong, and she chose to reject it. This is just one of the many reasons why Michelle completely rocks.

"The Help" displayed a variety of women, each of them choosing a different way of dealing with the issue. Some, like Emma Stone's character, knew it was unjust and tried to do something about it. Others, like her mother, portrayed by Allison Janney, also knew it was wrong, but lacked the courage to do anything. It was easier for her to go along with what the others thought than to take a stand. Then there were the others, those that "Didn't know..."

So, I really want to know your opinion on this. How were you raised? Did your beliefs change or stay the same once you matured? Do you believe those that say, "We didn't know?" Thank you in advance for your comment, I can't wait to read your view!! Also,

Thanks for Reading!!

113
comments:

When I was in high school we lived on a military base in North Carolina. We had a black maid, LaNeece, who came every week. She rode a bus to the base, went into the "maid's quarters" in the breezeway, took off her heels and dress and put on her working clothes.

The english word "sin" is a translation from the Greek (which the New Testament is originally written in) of an archery term which means "to miss the mark". In other words to make a mistake. There are no connotations of morality, evil ect . All that kind of meaning is something the word has accumulated in the past 2000 years.

In some traditions it is said the only sin is the belief in separation. Once you believe you are separate from anything else it becomes ok to not treat it with respect. Other people, other living things, your environment ect

This is a great post.I am from Alabama. I was raised on the east side of the state where the Chattahoochee River was the border between Alabama and Georgia.

Railroad tracks separated the black and white neighborhoods in the 80's and early 90's. When I was in elementary school, I began to understand the difference between right and wrong and how to treat people because of the way people in my community treat the "coloreds". It was shameful, disgusting and WRONG!

God has quite the sense of humor, I believe. As I grew up in a Pentecostal home, my father was very close friends with MANY people of color who even stayed in our home. . . as 1st class citizens. It was so appalling to some of our relatives who wore white sheets at night and burned crosses in peoples front yards, not to name other heinous crimes.

Three of the four of us (My siblings and me) are gay or lesbian. While that does not compare to the way the nation treated people of color in the eyes of some, I have friends and family who have been beat, mauled, tied to a fence post and beat to death, raped, etc. because they were born gay. YES I SAID BORN THAT WAY!

My point, I learned when I was young enough to get to heaven from innocence but old enough to know better that treating people of color or because they were different was WRONG!

Excellent as always. I, like you, was brought up in a similar household. Everyone is equal in God's eyes. One event I distinctly remember from college was when a friend of mine crashed at my apartment while my roommate was away doing his student teaching. One of my good friends came to stay for a weekend. He commented to me, "Why didn't you tell me Mike was black?" Astonished, as I was blown away that he was serious, I responded, " Because I didn't know it mattered." He tried to play it off like it didn't. Why would he ask if it didn't matter to him?

It's hard, isn't it! My parents were raised around an Indian Reservation in eastern Idaho. Think about how miserably "we" treated the Native Americans. My parents lived on the reservation for a while cuz they were so poor. I don't think they judged, but they did kind of know there was a difference in the way these people were treated. Just a little less respect and admiration even though there might not have been the discrimination that existed in the South in '60s. I know it would not have been "done" to marry an Indian. I was a teenager in the '60s (in Idaho.) I saw the race riots, etc. I'm ashamed to say I didn't condone what was happening, but I didn't actively recoil as I would now. Bigotry is taught. Maybe those raised in the South in the 40s and 50s didn't really know. But I think by the 60s they should have been aware. It's a touchy subject. I hope as a society we wouldn't carry on as Roberta does. I hope we're better than that. I'm afraid a sin is a sin, and I will probably should repent for several that I don't even know I committed. When we know better, we should do better. I'm glad God is the ultimate judge. He'll know what was in their (and my) hearts and I'll let Him take care of it. We can only pray that we will know right from wrong and DO right. A very provocative post and good points to ponder. Thanks!

Hello and welcome back, Joanie! I am eager to see The Help. "We didn't know" is a cop out, an excuse used by older generations of whites to make themselves feel better about the terrible injustices that they either tolerated or condoned back in the day. Are they saying that they didn't know that lynch mobs were wrong? Unfortunately racism will not be dying off when elderly racists are buried because they pass their beliefs on to their young. Michelle is a welcome exception to the rule. She chose to think for herself and break the chain of prejudice.

There was only one black student at my elementary school and none at all in my high school. I was that black kid's only friend but I do not remember becoming an object of ridicule as a result. In high school I was exposed to all the racist jokes and slurs that were passed around by ignorant teenagers that were merely parroting what they heard at home. In their defense it can perhaps be said that they did not know better. Our spiritual leaders, however, should know better or they don't belong in the pulpit.

In the fifties I lived in a small town in the state of Washington. I saw those signs on things like water fountains. Mostly it just confused me. Why do they have to be treated differently? We all have blood. We all have ten fingers and toes. My parents were prejudice and that's what I grew up hearing. They weren't from the south. They were from Idaho so it was everywhere. I had a friend who was Japanese until my parents stopped the friendship behind my back and Patty never talked to me again ever. I never knew why and I didn't get it. I thought we were friends. In Junior High we had a Black Social Studies teacher in 9th grade. NOBODY wanted her. But when the homerooms were read, I was put into her class. I learned to love that teacher. And I still say to this day, Mrs. Saunders was the best and most fair teacher I ever had in those 12 years of schooling. I'd still like to tell her that, though I'm sure she's probably not among the living by now.

I loved The Help. But it reminded me of those days in the 50's and early 60's. It was all just so silly.

I love this post. My dad was raised in the south in 50's and 60's and yet somehow he knew segregation was wrong. His parents taught him everyone was equal and he never believed any different, regardless of what society at the time was considering normal. My dad in turn taught us that segregation was a terrible time and that everyone is equal in God's eyes. My generation has dealt with segregation of sexual orientation but my dad taught me not even to factor that into to a person's "worth." It only takes one person deciding for equality to start a chain reaction. I'm so thankful my grandparents were "radical" and realized color doesn't make a person.

Again, even though segregation in schools may have started to cease in the 60's, it still went on into the 70's in Alabama. And again, the railroad tracks were still separating neighborhoods in the early 90's.

And when I got the heck out of that ignorance and moved north in the early 90's, people were still dressing in white sheets and hurting people of color after dark. Now they are doing it to people of color, different nationalities and gays and lesbians in that same small ignorant town! It is sick!

We had no blacks in our all-white school. There just weren't many blacks in the community at all. I wasn't aware of prejudice until I was 16 and my date left me stranded in another town at a teen center when his father came and dragged him out of there because he had taken the family car without permission. I needed a ride home, and the only familiar face was that of a black boy I recognized as a basketball player on at team my school played against. I introduced myself, explained my dilemma and asked if he would take me home. He very graciously said he'd be glad to do so. I really never thought anything about him being black until he dropped me off, and my mother saw him when I got out of the car. As soon as I was in the house, she started yelling at me that I hadn't better be thinking about dating "one of them," because the family would not stand for it. I was shocked and embarrassed that my family was so unkind. I didn't even know the word racist back then.

"You've got to be TAUGHT to be afraid of people whose eyes are oddly made, and people whose skin is a different shade - You've Got To Be Carefully Taught" - Oscar Hammerstein II

I was lucky, growing up in the 60s in the north, that I had an angel-mom who didn't see any differences between people. When I was 3 years old, I was introduced for the first time to a "person of color" and was told that this was my newest "Uncle", a term of respect that my parents used for any friend of the family that was their age or older. (That man was Sammy Davis, Jr., who used to sing at a club my brother was tending bar for). My first organ teacher and organ-repairman were both gay men, and they were treated no differently. Starting in the entertainment business at a very early age, I was raised around people of all ethnicities & orientations. It wasn't until I was in high-school that I even heard of prejudice.

In high school, when she noticed I wasn't dating much, my angel-mom sat me down and asked me "Well, have you thought of maybe dating girls instead? You know, if you're more interested in girls than boys, that's perfectly fine". It never mattered to her who I was with, she just didn't want me to be alone. I was never told I had to be one way or another, or that I should treat certain people differently than others. Later when I dated a black man, my family didn't blink an eye. They were, however, completely traumatized when I went vegetarian for 4 years - they couldn't understand how I could do that to them! :-)

Because of how I was raised and what my mother taught me, intolerance of any kind has never made any sense to me. The man I married (and divorced)was an adopted Ojibwe, and the ceremonies I used to go to on Native land reinforced the idea that we're all connected, all the same. How can it be otherwise?

I didn't read all of the comments above... someone directed a comment towards conservatives saying that they wouldn't understand. I would argue that at that time in this country, it wasn't necessarily define by conservative vs liberal.

I would agree that it was the way it was back then... how long does transition take (coming from someone whose last two posts have been about transitions)...

I have always called bullshit on the idea that the Civil War ended slavery when it really didn't... not really. What did it do? Take 3rd or 4th class citizens and turn them into 2nd class citizens? I would argue that blacks back then weren't even treated that well (2nd class).

The Civil War ended in 1865, but it took over 100 years for them to truly be free people. The U.S. Army after the Civil War then marched westward and did to the Native Americans what had been done to blacks. Afterall, aren't Native Americans still treated as 2nd/3rd/4th class citizens?

My Dad was a hard-nosed man... very bigoted, but I gave him credit for being that way because of the environment he in which he was raised. I mind you to note, that I am not condoning my Dad's actions or beliefs. Late in his Life before he died, I think he realized he had been oh so wrong. Religion says that if we repent of our sins JUST before we die, then we are saved (another reminder here that I am more Spiritual than I am religious).

I don't know why, but today, I was thinking of Mary Turner, a woman who worked for Mom and Dad as a maid. We loved Mary... she did indeed help raise us... Mom and Dad paid for Mary's medical expenses when she got sick, and I do remember us going to her funeral when she died... talk about funny... a group of whites at a black woman's funeral. Her family greeted us with open arms.

I come along as a child of the 60's... I saw things differently than my Dad did. I think I got a great deal of my openness and such from Mom. I have brothers that are 'different' from me... I would have to agree that their Life Experience has been different from mine. I'm not sure I can explain what I mean by that. I don't like the way they treat other people.

I'm sure I had a point when I started this... you did ask if it could be possible that people were just this way because of the time in which they grew up.

A couple of weekends ago, I (white) was in Clarksdale, MS attending a blues festival. One of the Democratic candidates (white) lives in Clarksdale, is Morgan Freeman's (black) attorney, and together they own several businesses there. This individual almost knocked me down as he was coming out of one of their businesses. He didn't apologize for his actions... hardly acknowledged me...

A short while later, as I was walking down the street, this black man approached me, handed me campaign literature and asked me to vote for Johnny Dupree (black) for governor of Mississippi. I asked him if he was Mr. Dupree... he replied with "I'm Johnny Dupree..."

I shook his hand as we talked... he introduced me to his wife... and I told him that I would vote for him. As we started to walk away, HE said to ME... "you might want to put that up... you may not want your friends to see you with that..."

I asked him, "Why would I want to do that...?"

I thought his comment to a white voter that had just said he would vote for him to be strange...

By the way, this is the first time I have EVER been asked by the candidate to vote for him/her for governor! I sure was going to do it!!

Oh,"They" know! It's their excuse. "They" would know if someone was doing them wrong wouldn't they?

I have a vacation home in the south and the prejudice is rampant and sickening. Not just to people of a different race and creed but also if you aren't from there. They think the civil war is still going on and call anyone outside of their state a Yankee. Oh not as just a name either. I was not waited on at a CVS store because I was told I was a damn Yankee (I live in Virginia!) It is most obvious when the tourists leave. For that reason I told my hubby I can not and will not live there as we thought in retirement. Too close minded for my liking. I don't want to be around toxic people it's exhausting and heavy.

I was raised by an Archie Bunker type and I would hear his stories about he was treated when coming to America yet he did the same to certain groups of people. I rebelled. I got a lot of punishment for speaking my mind in my own home about my fathers behavior. I have seen him change 180 degrees because some of these wonderful people are now in his family. He has mellowed....I believe God sometimes gives you what you need even if you don't know you need it. You can either learn or you can continue to treat humans terribly and pay the price later. It's all karma baby! :-)

I grew up in a white town that was separated by a bridge from a black town, and I think I grew up with the "let's keep our distance and pretend they're not there" mentality. When I got a job in HS, I was exposed to people outside my white race and it was then that my eyes were opened as to how stupid the whole separation thing was. Obviously, I bucked the trend because I married a black man and have two amazing biracial children. :)

At school we 'didn't know' in the other sense: there were a couple of girls who were not 'white' and some who were of mixed race. But we had not been exposed to racism at all and so we thought nothing of it. Their skin colour was no more remarkable than the girls who had red hair or who were very tall or who had any other remarkable feature.

Any time a person discriminates against another person for ANY external reason (race, sex, religion, class, sexual orientation, disability, etc.) it is definitely a sin, and the teachings of ALL the world's religions do in fact say that. If a person is dividing the world into "them" and "us", they are sinning, and I believe deep in our hearts we ALL know this.

"Seymour once said to me--in a crosstown bus, of all places--that all legitimate religious study must lead to unlearning the differences, the illusory differences, between boys and girls, day and night, heat and cold." - J.D. Salinger, speaking through the character of Buddy Glass , in Franny & Zooey

Fantastic post!! I am really eager to see this movie after reading the book. What really slayed me was that "those" people where good enough to raise the white people's children, but not good enough to share a meal with, drink from the same water fountain, or even shop at the same stores. Despicable! It's heartbreaking to imagine the child you raised eventually learning to hate you too. I just cannot comprehend it. And yet, we have not learned from our mistakes.

We still marginalize people today. Maybe not to the same degree, but our society still has second class citizens--immigrants and gays come to mind immediately. It's sick and wrong and I'd like to hope that we're a nation that can learn from our mistakes, but sadly that doesn't appear to be true.

You're back! Hurray! I just found you on Mercy's blog. I used to follow you with my first blog, then when I started my second one, I looked you up and saw that you were taking a break. So good to see you again.

I loved the Help so much - it was, as you say, filled with Oscar worthy performances. So good. I bawled. For a lot of reasons, but mainly that this was "normal" just 50 years ago.

Wow, I really enjoyed reading your post. I was born and raised in Australia so I never witnessed the African-American opression (I'm sure that's not the right word but it will have to do) Studying this through school this period of colour segregation in America was often compared to Nazi Germany and the opression of the Jews. I'm sure it was never taught in your schools that way and whilst the comparison may sound a little extreme - The basis of the two scenario's weren't all that different. Looking at the Stolen Generation and the 'whitizing' of our own Indigenous Australians it's probably not all that diffreent either. I wonder where society and the human race got it so wrong? And how did this sort of treatment of anybody become acceptable and 'normal'??? I wasn't raised in a religious home however I was raised to believe that no matter the background, opinions, colour, race or size of a person we're all equal and I strongly believe that.

My brother an I were raised to believe that everyone is equal, to treat someone as less is shameful.

If you were blind would you be able to tell someone was a different color than you?

My grandmother would tell stories of living is West Virginia as a girl. My great grandmother ran a boarding house for coal miners. It was located near the railroad tracks. More often than not there would be 'colored' people walking the tracks. If it was dinner time she would invite them to stay and eat with the family and the miners.

At the table.

She told any of the miners that if they had a problem with it, THEY could eat out side on the step.

Thank god for the Michelle's of this world. I am seeing The Help this coming week. I am thinking deeply after your post but don't quite know what I want to say! I just know I loved what you have written and cannot for the life of me understand these human movements in our world's history to eradicate, segregate, annihilate those whom we see as beneath our own kind. We are ALL of the one kind. I loved your anonymous commenter's opinion near the top of these comments and the Greek definition of 'sin' and separation. Thought-provoking.

I am from & still live in the deep south. My dad had a guy, he called him a colored boy even though he and my dad were probably the same age, named Joe James and he would work for my dad around our house on the weekends. He would do yard work, wash the cars and trucks. Joe James was always given something to drink & eat whenever he was there. I or my mom would make his plate of food & give it to him outside so he could eat it outside. Joe James never came inside our house. My parents said "he knew his place" and that is how they were raised. Nothing will ever change their mind, they are children of that era, it how they were raised and they see nothing wrong it.

I have friends of all colors and races, they are WELCOMED in my home to eat with me at my table.

My familly is all from New York City so they were completely comfortable and used to being in a melting pot of all kinds of cultures and races. Growing up I had friends of all races and I think because my Mom rocks so much I don't ever remembering questioning whether I was "different" from my friends of different races. In fact, my mom told me this cute story about how she was watching me and my little girl friend Simone (who happens to be African American) swimming together and playing at the pool when I was about 7 years old. Simone and I were playing and I took her arm and touched her skin and said, "You are REALLY tan! Much more tan than me!" :)

Just stumbled in and read this post. I was raised not to notice color and for the most part I never did. My second girlfriend in Jr High was Native American, my most steady excluding my wife was Korean. I am about as white as they come. I did marry a white woman but my extended family now includes many Native American, one from Bolivia, One from China. When my kids played with the Native cousina we used to smile because the Natives were always the cowboys and the whites were always the Natives :) Life moves forward and hopefully the new generations improve each year.

My mom was raised in the south, a beauty queen, I might add, by a mother who remembered lynchings. My father was raised in the north in a well off professional family. They met in 1955, married in 1956 and in 1961 my father returned to the south to serve as a pro bono attorney for freedom riders arrested for the crime of being black. Mom's family WAS NOT happy. My dad told me later, and my mom confirmed, that after about 1890 it was a lie to say "we didn't know". That was what people said to make it easier to sleep at night.i could to be more proud of my parents for believing in the true equality of every person and teaching their kids that lesson.

I haven't seen the movie yet or read the book but I will. I grew up in the 40s and 50s and my grandmother hired a couple to prepare and clean up our Christmas dinners. I felt so bad for them that they couldn't be home with their family. I tried to help them in the kitchen but they shooed me out. I asked my Grandmother why we couldn't cook our own Christmas dinner. I don't remember if she answered me but I felt so bad for the family.

yeah, I call the bull-shit flag on the 'we didn't know' argument, too...I grew up in the South in the 60s and 70s (I am going to be 54 soon) and even in 1974 when I invited one of my dark-skinned friends to come to the country club to play tennis and eat lunch it was the STAFF (who were black) who came out of the kitchen and employee lounge to oogle us...weird...thank god we have come a long way...we still have a long way to go...

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Welcome to my blog! I'm Joan, a former actress attempting to reconnect with my first love of writing.
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